Rudolf Signer

Rudolf Signer (17 March 1903, Herisau, Switzerland – 1 December 1990, Gümlingen, Switzerland) contributed to the discovery of the DNA double helix. He was a Professor for organic chemistry at the University of Bern from 1935 until 1972.[1][2]

Rudolf Signer
Born(1903-03-17)17 March 1903
Herisau, Switzerland
Died1 December 1990(1990-12-01) (aged 87)
Gümlingen, Switzerland
Alma materETH Zurich, University of Fribourg
AwardsLavoisier Medal
Scientific career
FieldsOrganic chemistry
InstitutionsUniversity of Bern

Education

Signer was the son of Jakob Signer, a chemical scientist working in the textile industry, and his wife Dorothea Agnes Scherrer. Rudolf Signer went to high school in St. Gallen and matriculated at the ETH Zurich in 1921 to study chemistry, initially in order to become a teacher. 1927 he graduated with his doctorate under the supervision of Hermann Staudinger. Already 1926 he had become Wissenschaftlicher Assistent at the University of Fribourg, where he qualified as a professor with a Habilitation.

Career

Signer spent 1932–1933 in Uppsala and Manchester on a Rockefeller-scholarship. He became a non-tenured professor for general and inorganic chemistry at the University of Bern in 1935 and was tenured in 1939. He went on to become director of the university's Institute of Chemistry and retired as emeritus in 1972.

Research

Signer focused on macromolecular chemistry, in particular with regards to natural products. 1938 he measured and described the DNA, discovering its thread-like structure. 1950 Signer produced extraordinarily pure DNA from the Thymus of calves, of which he took 15 grams of extraordinarily pure DNA to London. In England he gave it to various scientists, among them Maurice Wilkins, in order to promote research in the field. The analysis of X ray images of these DNA samples in Wilkins' laboratory allowed James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the double-helix structure of DNA. Rests of the DNA which Signer brought to England, survive today in the collection of King's College, London.[3] Over 250 of Signer's scientific writings were published during his lifetime. The Lavoisier Medal was awarded to him for his scientific work and achievements.

gollark: I did.
gollark: Creating server lag will not be tolerated, keep replication numbers low...
gollark: Interesting. Somebody has hybridized the Aidan strain with mine and increased some numbers to flood it to death.
gollark: I plan for the next step to be replicators which know which page *they* are and self-modify.
gollark: http://osmarks.tk:8080/view/tjMriHzvwfhRwBjs ← yet another strain now circulates!

References
  1. Center for Oral History. "Rudolf Signer". Science History Institute.
  2. Koeppel, Tonja (30 September 1986). Rudolf Signer, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by Tonja Koeppel at Berne, Switzerland on 30 September 1986 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: The Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry.
  3. "Signer's DNA". King's College, London. Retrieved 1 March 2018.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.